Perceptions on collaboration and social networking by Mike Gotta. The opinions expressed in this blog are my own views and not those of my employer.

August 31, 2007

Despite some media and blog coverage predicting the demise of trust in Wikipedia entries, I believe the system is working as it should - there is an ebb and flow to ensure community balance. People that exploit the system are discovered by tools provided by other community members (or interested parties) that shine the light of those activities.

If you look at these events over time, the reaction I believe/hope is bit more pragmatic. In the case of Wikipedia, these recent revelations are a necessary part of the continuing maturation of an open platform that still needs additional tools to make sure that interactions are made visible over time - even if they are thought to be "anonymous" at the time. I don't believe that you have to impose significant controls, people to act as "official" editors, or have forced registration if you can provide supporting information to the content which allows people to make an informed decision.

The UCSC tool mentioned in the article below adds some interesting capabilities that augment what WikiScanner delivers. The cat-and-mouse game will certainly continue - some Wikipedia topics are emotionally charged, or sensitive in other ways - but hopefully the community will continue to respond.

Wikipedia Trust Coloring

paleshadows writes "Researchers at UCSC developed a tool that measures the trustworthiness of each Wikipedia page. Roughly speaking, the algorithm analyzes the entire 7-year user-editing-history and utilizes the longevity of the content to learn which contributors are the most reliable: If your contribution lasts, you gain 'reputation,' whereas if it's edited out, your reputation falls. The trustworthiness of a newly inserted text is a function of the reputation of all its authors, a heuristic that turned out to be successful in identifying poor content. The interested reader can take a look at this demonstration (random page with white/orange background marking trusted/untrusted text, respectively; note "random page" link at the left for more demo pages), this presentation (pdf), and this paper (pdf)."

WikiScanner is a relatively new site that will track the edits made on Wikipedia.

The purpose of this service is to see who’s behind edits made, and how these actions generally lend themselves towards the self-interested corporations hoping to promote and protect brand identities. Created by CalTech student Virgil Griffith, WikiScanner searches the entirety of the XML-based records in Wikipedia and cross-references them with public and private IP and domain information to see who is behind the edits made on the online encyclopedia. With WikiScanner, there are a few levels on which you can search for info, including organization name, exact Wikipedia URL, or IP address, among others.

In what could be considered a sociology experiment, Griffith found that a good portion of edits for company entries are being made by the companies themselves. This isn’t surprising at all–it’s something that’s been speculated upon, and tested on a smaller scale. The team behind Wikipedia is also aware of it, and has been working to deal with issues such as this. Wikipedia’s policies have changed since it’s onset, and the user-generated system has been improved as a result. There is also a new edit-marking system that’s currently being tested on Wikia for possible use on Wikipedia in the future, making it even easier to track changes made to entries.

This pretty much is the way I expect things to evolve initially. The federation and interoperability model used for IM and presence is somewhat transferable to satisfy messaging needs and some type of shared data exchanged via a syndication model, or via a mediation server of some type (where there is agreement on formats). I imagine that IBM might tinker with its Sametime Gateway in a similar manner - extending it to exchange information with outside social networking systems (perhaps adding some type of syndication gateway service as well).

Microsoft & Bebo Team Up On IM & Shared Data:

San Francisco, Redmond, London, 21 August 2007: Bebo, the global social networking site, and Microsoft today announced an alliance to bring the Windows Live Messenger service, the world's largest consumer instant messaging (IM) network, to Bebo users. Additionally, Bebo and Windows Live will allow users to seamlessly exchange their contact information to invite and connect through their respective services. This deal marks the first time Microsoft has partnered with a social network for instant messaging and contacts.

The groundbreaking interface will enable all 36 million Bebo users worldwide who use Windows Live Messenger to display their Messenger presence and IM with their Bebo friends directly on the Bebo service. ... this partnership includes the use of the Windows Live Contacts API. This API allows users the ability to freely import and export their contacts and relationships between the services, ultimately giving users the choice where and how they wish to use their social network. ... Bebo users with Windows Live Messenger will add an "IM Me" icon which will appear on their profile page. In displaying their presence, all Bebo users - regardless of whether they have a Windows Live ID or not - will be able to, with one click, begin an IM conversation with each other.

... Users of Bebo that are also Windows Live Messenger users can opt in to getting notifications from Bebo as alerts in their desktop IM client. In addition, these users can add an “IM Me” button to their profile which allows people browsing their profile on the Web to initiate an IM conversation with them using a Microsoft-provided Web IM widget on the Bebo website which communicates with the Windows Live Messenger client on the profile owner’s desktop.

This is actually an interesting approach by Yahoo since it fine-tunes the context and information exchanged between all parties. But some of the big questions in terms of success will be

Would students see value in something like Kickstart at all

Would students give up their other favorite hang-out spot(s) and switch to Kickstart

If they saw some value in Kickstart, would they be more inclined to join if Yahoo supplied some way to synchronize information from a Facebook or some other social networking site

Would students see Kickstart as something specificically used for the hiring process (and abandon the site afterwards), or would they continue to participate post-hire if Kickstart continued to add value - perhaps as a professional contact/support network for younger workers.

Yahoo is looking to change the game with their new social job network, Kickstart. ...

Yahoo Kickstart connects college students with alumni at the companies that they are interested in. As you can see in the screenshot above, this student's "in" at Nike is an alumni named Dave Bottoms. Dave has expressed an interest in helping out students and connecting with alumni. He also knows one of your friends, went to your school, and shares a common interest with you. That's a really powerful networking tool. Presenting specific connections like this really adds a whole new value to this job network.

Will graduates want to leverage familiar tools in the workplace? I'm sure that the answer is a "90% yes" - they will want to continue working in ways that are familiar with them but not necessarily "the same" tools. However - the connections people forge on such sites during college or post-graduate studies will often continue, making it important for companies to realize the duality of social participation within tools geared for the enterprise vs. tools that cross work/life boundaries. You can not exclude either one.

Summary of some well-know and not-so-well-known social networking sites:

Social networking may have started with friends gossiping in high school and college on MySpace, but users are now turning to networking sites for professional reasons as well. Work is becoming as important as play in this new medium, with job-seeking as crucial as dating. Being able to see all your contacts' contacts helps people find multiple routes into the company they want to join. And the young demographic is broadening to include the parents of the teenagers who pioneered social networking in the first place.

August 30, 2007

The announced acquisition of Parlano is a strategic move by Microsoft. The addition of persistent group chat to the Office Communications Server (OCS) platform is a clearly reinforces Microsoft's Unified Communications strategy (which is somewhat obvious) but it also sets the groundwork for integration with Office SharePoint Server in ways that augment what Microsoft is doing in the area of social networking.

The UC Perspective

While Microsoft does have group chat capabilities within OCS, the sessions are what people typically expect - multiple people invited into a "room" where they can IM back and forth. When people end the chat session, it disappears. Parlano has taken this concept and extended it by adding "persistency". Group chat rooms can last for quite some time. The historical context delivered offers tremendous value to certain types of information and knowledge workers. Organizations can setup multiple channels of persistent real-time chat spaces. The solution may not be widely known of in the large enterprise market but the concept is popular within financial circles (which happens to be a strong install-base for Parlano).

Parlano also recently demonstrated the ability to add video calls from within persistent group chat applications. I would imagine that persistent video and audio features are on the roadmap as well. As Microsoft advances Parlano's rich media persistency, you can imagine additional synergy with the conferencing services within OCS as well as with RoundTable and Office Live Meeting. More broadly, I would expect some integration between the technologies Parlano offers with Microsoft's SharedView efforts as well.

The Social Networking Perspective ("Twitter For The Enterprise"?)

While persistent group chat might not be commonly known within the enterprise, it is popular in the consumer market. Twitter is perhaps the most well-known example of persistent group chat (but takes it to a level of visibility and transparency well-beyond what we might think of for a "group"). Still, there are some intriguing integration possibilities for Microsoft to pursue by taking Parlano's technology and applying it within SharePoint’s "My Site" feature. For instance, on a worker's profile page, the persistent group chat sessions that a person is a member of could be displayed. When persistent group chat is combined with functions delivered by Microsoft’s future Knowledge Network software, customers should expect some level of social network analysis and correlation based on user interactions within these sessions. When SharePoint is used for external applications, there are clear customer service and community-building aspects to persistent group chat that could also be explored.

Questions To Keep In Mind

It appears that Parlano will be implemented as a new server role. Infrastructure planners should keep that in mind when designing enterprise pools. It is not clear right now how Parlano will participate in the OCS Focus/Focus Factory architecture over time.

Parlano has its own compliance services. Audit strategists should closely examine how OCS implements compliance/records management and compare/contrast that support with what Parlano delivers. It is likely that the initial integration by Microsoft will require some extra steps to consolidate information. It may also require more work by administrators to define controls across the two products that define monitoring and tracking features to log certain user interactions and conferencing activities.

Communicator/OCS has a hook to Outlook to store personal chat history. It is not clear whether Parlano's persistent group chat will connect to Outlook to support a similar capability.

Security and network teams might want to look at federation and perimeter network design issues. For instance, it's not clear how external users "proxy in" to a persistent group chat session.

Client: Will Communicator Web Access support persistent group chat? Mobile? What is the overall client strategy for Microsoft given Parlano's client?

The Competition

Persistent group chat has also been a strategic focus for IBM as well. At VoiceCon Fall 2007, IBM discussed how it will deliver a range of real-time community applications (see this post by Adam Gartenberg).

Microsoft to Acquire Parlano

REDMOND, Wash. — Aug. 30, 2007 — Today Microsoft Corp. announced it has agreed to acquire Chicago-based Parlano, maker of MindAlign, a leading application for enterprise group chat. Microsoft expects to add Parlano’s group chat functionality as a new feature of Microsoft® Office Communications Server and Microsoft Office Communicator, Microsoft’s server and client software for presence, instant messaging, conferencing and VoIP.

.....

Founded in 2000, Parlano offers group chat technology that enables people to carry on topic-specific, multiparty instant messaging discussions that persist over time. Parlano’s software is used by companies in a variety of industries, including financial services, call centers and technology, to conduct ongoing business-critical conversations.

After the deal closes, Microsoft will add the group chat functionality to Office Communications Server and Office Communicator, and plans to offer group chat as part of the standard client access license for Office Communications Server 2007 Software Assurance customers. Current Parlano customers, many of whom already use Microsoft unified communications software, will have increased access to the breadth of Microsoft unified communications software.

Financial terms of the acquisition were not announced. The deal is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2007. Following the closing of the acquisition, members of the Parlano team are expected to join the Unified Communications Group at Microsoft’s Redmond, Wash., campus. Parlano is a privately held company and was represented by Revolution Partners and Bell, Boyd & Lloyd LLP.

August 29, 2007

Clever Workarounds

Since the iPhone's arrival, Corporate America has reacted in various ways. Some have let employees connect to the corporate network but deny tech support for the devices.

.....

Cisco (CSCO) subsidiary WebEx wants to help executives empty their coat pockets and shed unwanted phones. On Aug. 29, the company will give corporate users a way to access Outlook e-mail via their iPhones with its PCNow service. In March, WebEx began offering PCNow as a way to remotely access computer documents, e-mail, and calendars via mobile devices. The service is now available for the iPhone and will let workers access e-mail, contacts, and files on their PCs. WebEx is offering a free one-month trial, and then the service costs $12.95 per month for one PC, with discounts for those who buy in volume or sign up for an annual contract.

WebEx joins a growing number of companies that have announced or demonstrated services to help iPhone users connect to corporate e-mail since the new smartphone was launched in June. Those companies include Visto, Synchronica, Funambol, and Sybase (SY). On August 2, Synchronica began offering a 60-day free trial of its Mobile Gateway 3.0 service that provides mobile synchronization between Microsoft Exchange and Apple's iPhone. Visto will begin a free trial of its service late in the third quarter of 2007. On Aug. 7, Sybase demonstrated the use of one of its iAnywhere products to sign into corporate e-mail, calendars, and address books at its user conference in Las Vegas but has not announced a product.

...

Licensing Opportunities

Ultimately, a better alternative for corporate users, says Dulaney, is for Apple to follow Nokia's lead and license Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync as Nokia (NOK) did so its Eseries devices could have wireless synchronization for calendar and contact data as well as mobile e-mail from compatible Exchange Servers. In July, BusinessWeek reported that Apple had been in discussions last year with Good Technology (MOT), a leading provider of secure mobile e-mail, about putting Good Mobile Messaging software on the iPhone, but those talks broke down (see BusinessWeek.com, 7/23/07, "Making the iPhone Mean Business").

August 28, 2007

Well-worth clicking on the link below and read the full article - the story covers real-life social networking examples beyond typical consumer scenarios:

Social networking, popularized by teens sharing information with their friends online on Web sites such as Facebook Inc., is now blooming in the business world, thanks to new social networks that enable professionals and executives in industries such as advertising and finance to rub virtual elbows with colleagues.

... Now, online services are trying to promote a more personal type of business networking. Unlike relatively simple message boards that are open to all, these new sites -- including Sermo.com for doctors and INmobile.org for the wireless industry -- have features such as profile pages showing professional credentials; personal blogs that function like a kind of online diary; links to "friends" online; electronic invitations to real or online events; and instant-messaging.

... For a variety of reasons, social networking has been slower to take off in the business world. Employees are wary of disclosing too much to potential competitors, and loose-lipped executives can easily embarrass themselves and their companies online. Policing these services' memberships to weed out impostors can be difficult, and the sites are still in the early stages of turning their networks into sustainable businesses. Also, business users typically have less time to devote to socializing online and are willing to do so only if they believe they are getting a unique benefit from the site.

... we are in the midst of a slight change in focus in this market - but it is also a very important and necessary adjustment - a shift in emphasis from use of XML feeds to improve how information is communicated to "operationalizing" XML feeds as part of a process and application context. The focus on syndicating data will likely result in a stonger assessment of security, permission models, audit and compliance capabilities by IT organizations of vendors in this space. You can download the KnowNow report and/or register for the Attensa webinar by following the links below.

... As with Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) - where data flows between applications both inside and outside the firewall - a "Syndication-Oriented Architecture" extends the flow of critical information beyond applications to the people that need it most.

"Syndication standards are no longer just formats for relaying headline news. Now they can enable 'information agility' for all of the knowledge flowing inside and outside the enterprise," said Dr. Khare. "It is not farfetched to consider Facebook as an example of the future of enterprise knowledge management. Its personalization and collaborative filtering features may be at an early stage, but its platform strategy makes clear that its members view the world as a continuous stream of written information and social interactions. This infrastructure for scalable information routing is one of the most broadly used publish/subscribe applications in the world. SynOA outlines the implications of this model, and provides a roadmap for deploying these capabilities -- while complementing Service-Oriented Architectures -- to push relevant information to employees, customers, and partners."

On September 6th at 8:30 am PDT see Kapow's Mashup Server and the Attensa Feed Server in action and join the conversation between Stefan Andreasen, Kapow's CTO and Charlie Davidson, Attensa's CEO as they discuss and demonstrate the ability to create feeds from any web based source using the Kapow Mashup Server and channel role based feeds to specific users and groups across the enterprise with the Attensa Feed Server.

Facebook continues to draw support from a wide range of vendors, some with parallel enterprise solutions (future synergies perhaps):

One of the leading RSS Aggregation startups, NewsGator Technologies, jumped on the Facebook bandwagon today with NewsFriends (add to Facebook here) - a social news application where Facebook users can aggregate and share news, videos and podcasts. Once you have it installed, you can select friends and it automatically delivers you the news they are reading. You can also pick packages of popular feeds selected by NewsGator editors, or add news feeds directly.

The latest news stories display on your profile page, and by opening the app you can browse all your news feeds. You can post any news story and your comments to your profile, or send to a friend. Video and audio podcasts play inside NewsFriends.

August 24, 2007

The article below accurately reflects the multiple perspectives on unified communications that create some natural tensions:

end-users vs. management

consumer-centric providers vs. enterprise platform providers

software vs. network

Actually, I don't believe there are clear battle lines. Management has a responsibility to ensure security and compliance needs are satisfied. For systems to be deployed for use by employees that circumvent adherence to regulatory and audit requirements is absurd. But, if users are to compromise in that regard, management needs to do a much better job at knowing what users need and how communication devices, form factors and capabilities are used as part of that individual's work and lifestyle (since many of these devices are used for personal and business activities).

Consumer solution providers focus on capabilities that people find valuable in very compelling ways - if examine many of the topics related to social networking, it becomes apparent that the informal structures and relationships of an organization are a lot more externalized than ever before. Those connections are valuable for both the individual and that enterprise. So some degree of federation/interoperability between "corporate" environments and public networks has become an undeniable requirement.

The debate between software and network is almost a non-debate - networks need great applications and visa-versa. Users see value in the personal nature of the device and the applications it delivers. But users clearly value networks after they experience dropped connections, downtime, etc. Management values applications and networks that influence productivity and performance. Which is more valuable than the other results in an endless "which came first" argument.

It's interesting to note that Skype and Asterisk continue to add capabilities that make their technologies attractive to enterprise decision-makers so it is a bit disingenuous for company representatives to position themselves as somehow anti-establishment (it does make for good marketing and good speeches).

At the end of the day -

digital life eventually trumps digital work

enterprise solution providers need to be more consumer-centric and consumer solution providers need to be more enterprise-centric

any successful vendor or IT organization will need to support people that use their products/services within a business or personal context

Related Story:

When it comes to IP-based communications in the enterprise, how much control should be vested in the unified communications server administered by IT- vs. the end user who should feel free to use and configure his or her own voice options?